We live, simultaneously, in two different worlds. Ultimately, we live in the World of Nature, a world that we did not create and the world upon which all life depends. Most immediately, we inhabit a "human world" that we create ourselves. Because our human world is the result of our own choices and actions, we can say, quite properly, that we live, most immediately, in a “political world.” In this blog, I hope to explore the interaction of these two worlds that we call home.

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Gary A. Patton

I was an elected official in Santa Cruz County, California for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995. Now, I am an environmental attorney, practicing law in Santa Cruz County. If you would like to contact me, send me an email at gapatton@mac.com.

According to Crockett, who calls the president "an orange-skinned snake oil salesman," our President spent "$24 million vacationing in his first 10 weeks [in office] ... about as much as President Barack Obama spent in two years."

I join Crockett (and I bet a lot of other people) in being outraged that the taxpayers are spending about $2.4 million per week to make sure that our president can get out on the links as frequently as he seems to want to.

Let me add, however, that I am similarly outraged that the taxpayers spent $97,000,000 on vacation security, transportation, and other costs to make it possible for the Obama family to get away from the White House during President Obama's two terms. That eight-year total works out to only $213,173 per week for President Obama, versus that $2.4 million per week figure for President Trump. Trump beats out Obama in this spending contest by a factor of 11 to 1. That doesn't really make me feel better at all. Too much money, in either case!

If you believe Brainy Quote, it was Louis Brandeis who said "the most important political office is that of the private citizen." I happen to think that's right (no matter who said it, or when). This pattern of vacation spending, in which the citizens are treating the president and the president's family like royalty, providing them with unlimited recreational enjoyment at a large cost to the citizens, and at no cost to the president, is flatly incompatible with the idea that the "citizens" are the important ones.

Private citizens don't have their vacations subsidized. "We, the people," are supposed to be in charge of the elected officials who run the government on our behalf. It's hard to remember that when we treat those folks like kings.